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I heard about this yesterday in the pub and didn’t believe it but now I’m, watching it on the news: there’s a whale in the Thames. The BBC News coverage is very good. Lots of rare cinematic shots of over London taken from a helicopter as the sun sets. Boy London is beautiful at night. Seems like the whale is in with a fighting chance. It seems it is a baby that has been separated from its mother and gotten confused by the water and noise pollution.

The whale has managed to get pretty far into London. A friend said he saw it outside Westminster. They are taking it to open waters in order to release it.

Though it is still squinting into the distance with the hope of catching sight of it, for quite a while now the film industry has been looking out to the horizon for a wave that has been predicted by technology forecasters the world over.

With a look much the same as that of the famous archeologist as he turned to find some water to cool his foot following a particularly hairy mine cart chase, the film industry is about to realise that not only is the wave definitely a reality, it is a mere 100 feet away and as tall as the Empire State building.

Riding this wave are three men: Mark Cuban, Todd Wagner and Steven Soderbergh, who, if you listen very carefully, are yelling “Narly Dudes….surfs up!”. You see these guys have had a hard look at what digital cinema could mean and they’re doing something about it. They have announced that the release of Soderbergh’s new film “Bubble” is going to be in theatres, on dvds and on HDNet simultaneously. Many cinema chains in the US are unhappy about this new development and are refusing to show the movie. Mark responds to his critics in his blog and raises some excellent points.

It was only a few months ago that while re-designing some film out workflows people thought I was joking when I said we should be looking into getting our ipod video deliverables sorted. I wasn’t joking and Ben Barren doesn’t think so either.

The big question though is what’s going to happen to Dr Jones? Is he going to get the girl and save the village by delivering the shankara stone back to them? I’m just so tired of listening to people saying that digital cinema is going to destroy this and ruing that. Its simply an unbelievable oportunity. Fortune and glory kid.

Tonight was the first class of the documentary course that I’m taking at City Lit. I find that first classes always have a really interesting dynamic to them: people tend to be initially nervous and apprehensive but as soon as group discussions start, a sort of realisation that everybody has similar interests starts to filter through the room. That’s a great moment. It also became apparent that if this class is at all representative, then 75% of the worlds documentary makers are female.

In this first session we looked at the role of the documentary in defining who we are and how we live, how rather than being a window on the world, the documentary in many ways acts more like a mirror, reflecting various viewpoints back at us. We watched extracts from 2 documentaries:

The first was 49 Up directed by Michael Apted, the latest installment of the Up! Series. Started in 1964, the series follows 14 seven year old children as they get older (revisiting them every 7 years) and explores the notion of class. In order to give a feeling of coherence throughout the series which spans many decades, the style is rather conservative. It focuses on personal lives and the subjects tend to fit certain stereotypes. One wonders how much of an influence the documentary itself has had on the people it follows and indeed whether it has simply helped to lead them down the paths set out by their class. Nevertheless a very interesting series which is ongoing and who’s next installment will coincide with the London Olympics in 2012.

The second documentary by Nicholas Barker, Unmade Bed, is set in New York and follows four heterosexual singles. In contrast to the UP series, this is very stylised can be described as a hybrid documentary / film, the director having asked the subjects to replay themselves under his direction in certain parts. Very beautiful shots of New York in a wide aspect ratio, combined with interesting choices of music and a complete absence of voiceover give this a real cinematic look. In a way the subject matter and also the portrayal of the people give this a black comedy feel to it which can leave you with a certain voyeuristic taste in your mouth. Although it did at first seem a bit strange, I really liked the idea of a hybrid as it helped to push the boundaries of what you think a documentary is. I like looking at things in new ways.

Very much looking forward to next weeks installment which will be looking at the categorisation of documentaries. I’ve also arranged to exchange a list of my favorite documentaries with several of the people I met. That sounds like a job for the opml editor. I love Dave Winer’s idea for reading lists…but what I want is a watching list!

Xinhua News Agency: China getting ready to lauch a digital cinema server. I’ve had several conversations about this sort of thing lately. Very interested to see how this pans out. Its the sort of thing that could make it far easier to get smaller film makers to get their work on the big screen. Though with the Digital Cinema Initiative being a consortium of all the big industry players, including Disney, Fox, MGM, Paramount, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Universal and Warner Brothers Studios, you kind of wonder how they are going to try to keep their grip on things. If a trend similar to that in the music industry starts to materialise, where podcasts and networks like the PMN are sprouting up…these guys aren’t going to be too happy.

I’ve started to read “Down and Dirty Pictures” by Peter Biskind which is a historical perspective of the rise of the independent film industry. I’ve only got as far as the Preface but already it tells the story of a pretty scarry world. You can bet these guys are keeping a close eye on this thing we call the web.

I’ve just enrolled on course 5HF002 at City Lit called Re-imagining the documentary: the documentary today in film and television. Thankfully they had some places left as I had kind of left it to the last minute what with all my traveling lately. It starts in two days! The course will last 12 weeks and consists of a two hour class on Wednesday evenings, all for the very reasonable price of £76.

From what I can gather, the course will be led by Gail Cole, a Film Theory Lecturer from Westminster University and Adam Kossoff who is a postgraduate researcher at the Royal College of Art.

Documentary making is something I’ve been interested in for a number of years. For some reason the time just seemed right to do something in the documentary realm now. I’ve got some ideas that I’ve been churning over for a while now. Needless to say they involve the web.

Yesterday I met with Ali McClymont a friend I’ve known since my Uni days. Ali is an artist but has had his fingers deep into technology his whole life and is also a fantastic web and graphic designer. He explained to me that during his time at the Royal College of Art he noticed that the majority of artists there were complete technophobes. This is such a shame because these are really creative people with fantastic ideas.

I told him about Nerd TV interview #9 that Robert Cringely did with Anina who is an international model but also a blogger and mobile technology power user. Its great to see non techies using the web in interesting ways as she is with 360 Degree Fashion. What’s also great is that she’s so keen on showing others in her world that its not so hard after all. Its not that artists are rubbish with computers, its just that they need to be shown a little bit.

Ali is developing a great new site to help artists with their portfolio, biography and blog. It’s powered by Wordpress and he’s got a few tricks up his sleave that sound really interesting to me. This could really be a great community thing. Lets get these artists on the web!

On a similar note I was talking to Toby Richardson, an old School friend, while I was up in Scotland last week. He’s a great musician but has found it hard to find other artists with similar tastes and direction to team up with. It can take several months of playing together to realise that they don’t want the same thing which can be a real waste of time. It strikes me that an artist with a blog would find it much easier to find the right sort of musicians to play with. You can listen to The Summerines new track “I know you well” here.

As I sit on the Eurostar at Gare du Nord station in Paris waiting to depart direction London, I reflect on 4 days in this superb place. I’d like to thank the smelly cheeses, the lovely red wines, oyster and champagne decadence, the NYE boat party, the endless supply of people wearing hats; old friends, new friends, a fantastic host, and last but not least the wonderfull french pastries without which waking up would simply not have been possible.

The perfect combination of all of these people and things have really made the end of my whirlwind trip around Europe something to remember. Bisous a tout le monde, I hope to see you all again soon. May good things happen to you in 2006.

…from my mobile